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Of Games and Nightmares: the American Horror Story TV Show Meets the PlayStation 3 Commercial

The other week, while watching the last few episodes of the wonderfully creepy American Horror Story TV series, I had a suitably jarring experience.

If you haven't seen the show, it's about an American family that moves into a house that turns out to be haunted -- and ultimately destroys them all.

In the penultimate episode, Violet, a younger, likeable ghost, is attempting to rid the house of an extremely nasty member of the living dead.  She learns a spell for banishing bad spirits and tries it on him.

She flings the evil ghost's watch into the fireplace and untters a mystic word.  In response, he quivers ironically, and then bursts out laughing.  Violet gasps: "the spell didn't work!"  The bad ghost tells her that they never do.  People make up these rituals, he explains, to make them feel in control.  "But guess what," he mutters, "they're not."

This pessimistic vibe lingers throughout the episode.  A little later, Violet's mother, Vivian (who's still alive at this point), has the misfortune of going through childbirth in this freaky abode.  As you might expect, things don't go right -- and she starts to hemorrhage severly.

Her husband begs her to fight on.  But Vivian can also see Violet's spirit, who tells her, "mom, if you're in pain, you can let go."  Fading at this point, she replies: "I don't think I have a choice."

Unusual as it was to see a TV show where the stars don't ulitmately "pull themselves up by their bootstraps" and "take control", what was just as surprising, in this context, were some of the commercials that paid for it.

The most striking to me was one for PlayStation 3, which praises a young hero named "Michael":

 

At first viewing, it seems as if American Horror Story and PlayStation 3 come from completely different universes.  One ruled by defeat -- the other by conquest.

The Horror of the Real Estate Bubble

The "horror" in American Horror Story, in addition to the phantoms and spooks, is the seeming helplessness of the family stuck in this nasty home.

And you can see why this program became the new water cooler show: in an age of foreclosures, it captured an element of the zeitgeist.

The haunted house genre is after all, sometimes seen as an allegory about the anxieties caused by real estate -- and how sometimes, when a house goes bad, it can threaten a family's financial and emotional existence.  Here's literary critic Walter Benn Michaels on the Amityville Horror:

"Think of the plight of the Amityville couple as investors in real estate: having risked everything to get themselves into the spectacularly inflationary market of 1975, they find themselves owning the only house on Long Island whose value is declining -- the only one for a few years, anyway, until rising interest rates, as intangible as ghosts only more powerful, would begin to produce a spectacular effect on housing prices everywhere."

The Triumph of the Gamer's Will

But if American Horror Story is a fable about being overpowered by mysterious (perhaps ultimately economic) forces, is not the PlayStation 3 ad its mirror opposite?  In it, Michael, the gamer (whose portrait we see at the end) rather than get overpowered by phantoms, anxieties or crisis situations, is instead, their total master.  The "ghosts and goblins" in the spot worship the guy like a god!

All of which makes me wonder if there's not a sort of cause and effect relation between these two spectacular forms of entertainment.  It's as if the godlike pleasure of the video game has been invented as an antidote for the grim realities the TV show brings to mind.

You can see why young people -- especially males -- would love PlayStation 3.  In a world where mom and pop may be over stretched, perhaps stuck with responsibilities and investments (real estate or otherwise) that are going south fast, a game like this at least creates a fantasy where a little personal heroism is still thinkable.

And the tag line "Long Live Play" suggests something else.  Perhaps the reason the act of playing (like ritual) has been around as long as human culture itself is that our awareness of a potential disaster, always seemingly lurking around the corner, creates the need for mastery of some sort -- over some domain or reality.

Even if it's all only a game.  Thoughts? 

 

Is Jenny Still from the block? Jennifer Lopez's "My World" TV Commercial for Fiat

Recently, a standard, celebrity endorsement TV commercial started a mini-firestorm across the blogosphere, twitter and even mainstream media.

In the spot, Jennifer Lopez seemingly drives through the Bronx in a Fiat and describes how much her old hood means to her:

 

It turns out, as exposed by The Smoking Gun and other blogs, when JLo tells us how the Bronx neighborhood where she grew up inspires her "to be tougher, to stay sharper, to think faster", she is actually in L.A. doing a voiceover -- and the person we see in the Fiat is a body double.

To make matters worse, reporter Ed Morales witnessed the shoot (it took place close to his home), and took a photo that showed that the car in the commercial actually broke down.

If this weren't enough, the graffiti artists who created the giant heart you see at the beginning of the spot, also cried foul.  Their work, which Fiat used without permission, is copyrighted (Fiat ended up settling with them out of court).

And then, in the midst of all this, during Lopez's performance at the American Music Awards a Fiat appeared suddenly in the middle of her act, offering an instance of product placement so blatant, a fellow performer questioned her integrity.   The Fiat appears a little over a minute in...

 

The Authenticity Dilemma

Amusing as all these exposes are, initially I came away wondering, as Anderson Cooper did, what all the outrage was about.

After all, part of advertising's mystique has to do with the whole real or fake dilemma ads pose.  This is a genre of communication that delights in ambiguity. Think of the iconic headline that launced Clairol in the U.S.: "Does she or doesn't she?"

You could even argue that one of the thrills consumer goods provide is the tantalizing possibiity that they allow you to try out and even adopt new identities.

But with a little reflection, I could see why people got irked.  Lopez has built her brand around the image of a superstar who keeps it real by staying in touch with her roots.  Who can forget those lines from her most famous song:

"Don't be fooled by the rocks that I got
I'm still, I'm still Jenny from the block."

And it's this aura of authenticity that Fiat wants to associate with its cars.  Here is Fiat's marketing guru, Olivier Francois:

"Jennifer fits perfectly with the brand not because of who she is but because of what she is -- authentic, passionate, modern, and a fighter determined to stand out from the rest.  As you look at her career path, she embodies the Fiat philosophy, 'Life is Best When Driven.'"

Francois has reason to be confident with such a strategy.  He used the "authenticity" sell in his remarkably successful re-launch of Chrysler -- with TV spots starring blue-collar heroes like Eminem and others (covered on this blog here and here).  And an earlier viral video ad connected with the Lopez campaign ranked 4th most popular of its genre this year.

Nevertheless, you can see the contradiction contemporary ideas of authenticity often entail.  Francois praises Lopez for her driven, competitive personality.  She is authentic because, despite the odds against her, she fought for her individual vision.

Yet, the spot isn't so much about her individuality, but her loyalty to her community.  In fact, it's her "street cred" that affords her, as a performer, much of her bravado, swagger and authority.

Perhaps, then, the source of irritation with this spot drives from an issue Michael Lally (from Lally's Alley) has brought to my attention recently -- that of co-optation.

The fact that Lopez and Fiat simulated her cruise through the Bronx, appropriating its urban art, street scenes and people for their own uses, no doubt seemed to offer a particularly ungraceful example of cultural co-optation.

All of which makes me wonder if questions of authenticty become particularly acute for celebrities with working class roots.  On the one hand, they've got to transcend, even betray, their backgrounds to get over.

On the other, they've got to stay loyal to their cultural milieu in order to use it credibly -- especially if their artistic personas draw on their class or ethnic identity.

In any case, Fiat must be hoping the accusations about the ad's fakery don't reflect upon their car.

For in the past, Fiat has had its own problems with authenticity.  I've read that the last time the brand made a push for the U.S. market, instead of a hip, urban ride, it got a reputation as a car that broke down a lot.

The brand's name, in fact, became an acronym for "Fix It Again, Tony." Thoughts? 

From Diesel (Jeans) Island to Zuccotti Park: Thoughts About OWS and Some Recent TV Ads and Videos

I've been away from this blog for a few weeks to get other writing projects done.  Now that I'm back, I thought it would be interesting to look at a few TV ads and videos that are  related -- directly or indirectly -- to Occupy Wall Street and/or our current political culture.

First, one from the Right (specifically focused on a Democratic candidate) that slams OWS and everyone associated with it.

Negative Political Attack Ad on Elizabeth Warren

 

This Karl Rove production associates Warren with the anachronistic sign of Communism ("radical redistribution of wealth"), with a little 60s era "hippie druggie" stuff thrown in for good measure.

But what interests me more here is one of the other reasons the ad offers as to why this rising Democratic star is "dangerous" -- she's an intellectual theorist.  This sort of "accusation" is partly a recycling of Cold War-era anti-intellectualism.  But it also points to another cliche about intellectuals: they're supposedly ineffectual, i.e., "all theory and no practice."

This can also be related to a common criticism of Occupy Wall Street.  Some commentators have complained that the movement is indefinite as to its demands.  At the heart of their irritation is the implication that OWS is all ideals, no "getting down to brass tacks" -- a variation on the theme of all talk/protest, no (effectual) action.

The next ad, produced for OWS (funded through an online crowdsourcing site), does a lot to answer both the criticisms of radicalism and impracticality.

Occupy Wall Street TV Ad

 

This ad seems designed to answer the question of "what do they want?" head on.  Every person who makes a cameo here begins their statement with "I want..." Some demands/desires are more general -- but others are quite specific.

Additionally, the mosaic of faces presented in the ad is from a wide enough swath of U.S. society (and the people look "normal" enough) to prove that OWS, rather than a radical "them" is a home grown "us".  You  might call the spot a representation of representativeness -- signifying not "dangerous foreign collectivism" but U.S. democracy with a capital D.

"Diesel Island Is Going Down!" (Video Ad)

In the context of the argument about the need for change that you see in the first two ads, the new video ad below for Diesel Jeans (though not directly about OWS) is  all the more fascinating.

A few months back, this blog covered a Diesel campaign in which the brand created a wacky kingdom called Diesel Island, "the least fucked up country of all".  It was an imaginary nation, made up of a kooky community of young idealists who all, of course, wore Diesel Jeans.

In this new video, we find out that this utopian experiment in (heavily-branded) democracy, alas, has succumbed to corruption and scandal:



Looking at this clip now, it's hard not to think, by coincidence at least,  of that other locale where utopian impulses are springing up: Zuccotti Park.  And though neither of the first two spots touches on it directly, the utopian element of OWS is what actually excites some commentators  Here is Matt Taibbi, reporting for Rolling Stone:

"...Occupy Wall Street was always about something much bigger than a movement against big banks and modern finance.  It's about providing a forum for people to show how tired they are not just of Wall Street, but everything.  This is a visceral, impassioned, deep-seated rejection of the entire direction of our society, a refusal to take even one more step forward into the shallow commercial abyss of phoniness, short-term calculation, withered idealism and intellectual bankruptcy that American mass society has become.  If there is such a thing as going on strike from one's own culture, this is it."

Is not the original message of Diesel Island (and other imagined brand communties such as the Republic of Corona) exactly the sort of thing that Taibbi sees OWS as rejecting? That is, the offering, say, of brand images and experiences as simulated stand-ins for more actual sorts of freedom.

Some scholars claim the ideological function of consumer culture is precisely to provide such  consolation prizes as substitutes for our own insurgent impulses.  William Davies put it this way, in a recent article in New Left Review:

"Advertising, like management theory, is fuelled by a critique of the dominant normative-economic regime within which it sits, facilitating safe acts of micro-rebellion against the macro-social order."

In this light, the dissolving of Diesel Island seems almost honorable.  It's as if consumer culture's unconscious is saying (in video dream-speak): "hey, when you've got real utopian experiment in the news, who needs a simulated one?"  (Though what Diesel's ad folks really intend is probably to  just to promote the brand as cool,  by way of joking around with the  political zeitgeist.)

In any case, this all makes you wonder: if experiments like OWS persist, what will it mean for consumer culture as we've known it?  Thoughts?

 

Reading in Chicago with Elaine Equi on Wed., 10/26

News flash.   I'll be reading with Elaine Equi in Chicago, for the first time in over 20 years! If you live in town, would love to see you there.  Here's the info:

Columbia College
Elaine Equi & Jerome Sala
Wednesday, October 26, 5:30p.m.
Hokin Hall, 623 S. Wabash, Room 109

More info here.

 

Are We Cynics or Realists? Thoughts on John Barnes' "The Lost Princess Man" (in The New Space Opera 2)

To relax, I keep going back to a big paperback anthology I bought a few months back titled, The New Space Opera 2.  (Earlier post on this book here.)  The gem I found found this time is a story by John Barnes, called "The Lost Princess Man."

One of the things I love about the science fiction genre is that, through its allegorical tales, it offers real insight into contemporary social attitudes and ideology -- often via satire.  In keeping with this Swiftian agenda, "The Lost Princess Man" captures a key aspect of our contemporary structure of feeling.

It tells the tale of an interplanetary con man who navigates his way through a vast and incredibly dangerous totalitarian empire by working a specific scam.  And it's a particularly heartless one.

He preys on destitute young women.  He picks out a victim, and then attempts to convince her that he's been sent from on high because he has evidence that she's of a royal bloodline, and may be the "lost princess" for whom the Imperial government has been searching (to perpetuate its lineage and reign).

Once his prospect agrees to travel with him (to claim what's hers), she is drugged, turned over to plastic surgeons who make her irresistible (according to current fashion), and installed as a high-class prostitute in a ritzy bordello.  "The Lost Princess Man" collects a bounty for every "recruit" he delivers.

But then, we find out something surprising.  He says this of his marks:

"They're blunt, not easily fooled, and hate authority.  After listening [to his con] for a while, the girl says, 'I think you are working the lost princess con, and the minute you have me off the planet, you will pump me full of drugs, and I will wake up chained to a bed with a large number of Imperial troops lined up and  waiting to have a turn on me.'  At which point, I say, 'Well, of course.'" 

Asked by his interlocutor why he actually admits he's pulling a scam, the "Lost Princess Man" replies that, on balance, what he has to offer is a big improvement over the impoverished lives these young women lead.  Further, they don't get "gang banged", but instead, are considered "luxury goods" -- and (according to "sumptuary laws") their service can only be sold to a limited number of very well off individuals.

As part of the deal, they recieve an education, their artistic and intellectual talents are developed, and they become fluent in multi-planetary cultural manners.  This is why many of those he approaches agree to go along with him voluntarily.

Cynicism or Realism?

The story continues to take wild twists and turns after this (especially after we find out that the Empire really is looking for a "lost princess"), but I'll stop at this passage, because for me it rings all sorts of ideological bells.

The first thing it reminds me of is the way cultural critics such as Peter Sloterdijk and Slavoj Zizek characterize the ideology of our moment.

In the old days (according to their writings), when our glitzy, consumer culture promised us it held the key to our self-realization (in the form of eveything from cool clothes, to tech devices, to self-help schemes, to designer drugs, etc.),  we sometimes believed that such enhancements would help us find our inner lost princess or prince.

Now, we're supposedly too hip for all that.  Yet, we continue to use such props anyway -- and in this sense, "go along with the pitch", but now, with a sort of cynicism.  "I know very well," we think, "that this won't help me find the well-being I want, but, what the hell, you gotta have something."

As Zizek puts it: "Cynical reason is no longer naive, but is a paradox of an enlightened false consciousness: one knows the falsehood very well, one is aware of a particular interest hidden behind an ideological universality, but still one does not renounce it." 

On the other hand, you could argue that the "marks" in this story, rather than cynics are realists about their actual prospects. I'm thinking here about a remark the philosopher Jacques Ranciere made on contemporary exploitation.  As he put it:

"The dominated do not remain in subordination because they misunderstand the existing state of affairs but because they lack confidence in their capacity to transform it."  He adds, though, that getting such confidence depends upon there being a credible politics that offers a way out.

In the absence of that (or, say, some trustworthy form of inner transformation), perhaps the compliant folks in this story are merely being (wisely) strategic.

Nevertheless, such a tale raises a provocative question.  In our "seen-it-all-before" time, when we make our own Faustian bargains, are we being cynics or realists?  Thoughts?